This has happened to me before when I was in college at a frat party. This girl comes squeezing herself in between me and my friend and throws her arms around me. “Amanda, I am so glad you decided to come!” I was so confused and just figured she was drunk and mistaked me for someone else, until I saw the panic on her face. She leaned close and whispered that a guy was following her, was certain that he had put something in her drink and if I would please play along. I looked behind her and sure enough, some creep was watching her like a hawk. We invited her to hang out with us the rest of the night and even waited until her ride showed up just to make sure she was safe. Always look out for each other!
If you ever feel scared like this just come up to me like we have been friends since kindergarten, call me any name u can come up with ill play along.
🗣
👌🏾
Stay together, stay safe
Perfect advice. I’m reblogging this as a guy, because first of all, if you”re a guy : DON’T DO THAT. Don’t be that creep.
And if you’re a guy and you notice some creep is following or stalking a girl, and that she’s obviously uncomfortable or panicked, go ahead and say hi, long time no see, pretend to be her cousin, and tell her discretly you noticed there was a shady guy. Ask her if something’s wrong, if she feels unsafe, if she wants your help (very important – she may not trust you enough, no one could blame her, don’t take it personally). (and don’t you dare take advantage of the help you offered for a flirt opportunity, that would make you no better than the creep)
We can all stop “witnessing and do nothing”, and set an example.
Alternative option for a guy: if you feel safe doing so, go up to the creeper who’s following her and be like “hey WHAT’S UP bud do you like SPORTS? My favourite team is the redsox what’s YOURS my man? What you DRINKING dude that looks GOOD.” and be friendly and just loud enough to blow his cover. Draw attention to him and see what he does. He won’t feel as safe creeping if he knows people are looking at him, and maybe he’ll leave. It also means the woman won’t have to worry that you are *another* creeper she has to be wary of, and you may distract the bad dude enough to give her a chance to lose him.
Always be vague. Say I think they’re in today or not until later. If they press say it’s company policy not to give out the schedule. Most companies do have this and even if they don’t how would a stranger know. Don’t give out specifics, they can get people injured or even killed.
At my last job someone came up and asked when “Sarah” was working next. I didn’t tell him and then texted her a description, turns out he was an abusive ex who had been stalking her. Don’t do this shit please.
Do NOT say anything along the lines of “they’re not in today” or “not until later” because you are confirming that this is somewhere the person in question can be found. NEVER confirm anything!
My old boss told us a story of how, years before when she was a fairly new manager (I’m talking decades, she’s 64 right now), there was a man who came in and asked for an employee by name and said he was her uncle. She told him the employee’s shift started in a coule hours. He waited the entire time for her, and when she came in, he assaulted her and bashed her face into the counter. My boss saw everything. She can’t recall what he said, but he kept screaming until someone threatened to call the police.
She told me that story after a man came in and asked for when an employee, who recently quit, would be coming in. I told him she doesn’t work here anymore and he said to me “Okay, well I’m her dad so if you see her tell her I’ll be across the street at the gas station.” He left and my boss IMMEDIATELY came out and scolded me for it, then told me that story.
She gave me some advice on what to say or do in that situation:
Don’t just deny knowing anything, deny the person asking. Example, “When is ____ coming in?” “You can’t know that information.” or “Can you tell me when ____’s shift is?” “Schedules are only for employees.” Additionally, saying “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” can usually work, it may piss them off but it can work.
Continue on with the customer service. “I can’t help you with that, do you need help (with clothes, finding a product, ordering)?” or “Can I take your order?/Can I help you find (a product)?”
If they persist, insist they leave the store. “If you’re not going to order, please leave the building.” or “I can’t help you, have a nice day.” and, if you can, leave. If you can’t leave, call for or help the next customer.
If they still persist (by now they may be aggressive), threaten to call the police on the basis of them becoming aggressive and refusing to leave the premises. Some people will leave at that point, others stay. When the police get there, explain the situation but still do NOT confirm the existence of the employee they’re looking for to the police until they have been escorted out of the area.
Regardless of if the customer know the employee’s name, description, or daily (not hourly) schedule, even if they look like the same race and claim to be family, you NEVER confirm the employee’s existence.
The only exceptions are if the employee tells you themself they’re expecting someone to come in for them (ASK FOR A DESCRIPTION OF THE PERSON), and if you personally know who they are in relation to the employee. When anyone I know has to come in because I asked them to come in, I describe what they look like and what they usually wear. I go into deep descriptions, even including how they walk.
You could literally save a life, guys. Don’t blindly trust your gut either and think “But they LOOK innocent” or “But they said ______” because that can result in someone getting severely hurt, or killed.
I know I joked on this post before but seriously
If youre in the US it is against federal law to give out anyones personal information (this includes numbers, names, and schedules) without writen and signed permission.
Just say its against federal law and you cant give out that info without risk of termination – this will get 99% off your back the first time
Giving out personal information is also against the law in the UK, the EU, and New Zealand (personal experience), and I believe also in Australia. This is due to the Data Protection Acts (DPA) – at the moment in the UK, you can say: “Security about data has been tightened due to the GDPA being brought into law,” which is true of 99% of businesses.
As someone that has grown up surrounded by beaches and done surf life saving, I know how the sea works. Lots of people dont. Every summer multiple tourists die here because they don’t respect the sea, if you’re going to the coast, here’s a thing I saw on Facebook.
wow.
reblogging for all of us that grew up in land locked states, then visit the ocean and are used to just plunging into a lake.
Something that i’ve seen happening in my notifications this week is a new kind of porn blog interacting with my posts, and i want to explain WHY its so important to block them.
In the past all that would happen if a porn blog would follow you is just that, they’d follow you. It was all to do with google algorithyms where if a porn blog was shown as ‘linked’ or following a legitimate site/blog then it increased the place they came in the google searches. Great if you are one of those scam websites that gets people to click on links that either plant malware or are just shady as fuck. Porn blogs were also sometimes shut down without warning so all the scammers hard work was over and gone. Good for us, not good for them. Most of these blogs were just stolen gifs/videos from other porn blogs anyway. If you thought gif stealing was bad/rife in the geek/nerd fandoms, just have a peep at the porn blogs.
Well a lot of the search engines etc caught onto this and built controls into their software, so they found a new way of getting (or at least trying to get) people to click on links to take them off of the tumblr site. This is by finding a random post from a legitimate blogger, which could be about anything, and either deleting the entire content of the post and adding in some ridiculous comment like ‘For more fun follow this link’ with a hyperlink off of tumblr, or if its a photo that in any way is either fun/a meme/or a little nsfw, they keep that in place and just add their link like above. Scroll down their blog and literally every single post will be a reblog and have exactly the same comment on, getting you to click and take you off site.
What does this matter i hear you ask? Well, when it comes to reporting a post, it helps to confuse the tumblr bots/staff as to what’s being reported… the comment or the original post? This means that when a bunch of posts are reported, they are all coming from different originators, this will make tumblr staff’s life even harder, and legitimate blogs are at risk of someone hitting ‘deactivate blog’ in the admin settings, meaning YOU COULD LOOSE YOUR ENTIRE BLOG BECAUSE SOME ASSHOLE PORN BOT REBLOGGED FROM YOU.
So don’t ignore this kind of thing, if you see one of these stupid reblogs (the bots very rarely actually follow you anymore), BLOCK THEM RIGHT THERE AND THEN.
Okay but the first set of gifs is not a joke like that’s literally how it goes.
One of the girls at work won’t get in the guy’s car unless he agrees to let her take photos of him and his license plate to text to her mother. If he gets mad or makes a fuss she cancels the date and goes back inside.
Reblogging for that 👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼
I’ve had someone take pics of me and my license plate on a first date before & I was okay with it. I’ve also had a friend allow me to view the tracking on her phone when she went to meet up with a guy the first time. This isn’t a joke at all & women have good reason to worry.
i have only ever met 2 people online, and made sure that we met up somewhere that was 1) public 2) close to my home.
After, I walked to the dollar store that was a couple shops down until I knew they were gone, before walking home.
Louis C.K. kind of nailed it. Men worry that their date won’t measure up to their aesthetic preferences. Women worry that they’re going wind up dead.
The disparity is RIDICULOUS, and the fact that dudes get offended when women try to protect themselves is hard proof that way too many guys Do Not Understand how dangerous it is to be a woman. (Not to mention it’s fucking insulting. “How dare you not trust your life and safety to a complete stranger whose intentions you have no way of knowing”?)
Lookin’ at the notes on this post following my earlier reblog and just
going….
Wow. WOW. Look at all these sheltered people and their internalized misogyny.
The point isn’t, “NOT ALL MEN ARE OUT TO GET YOU.”
The point is, “WE HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING A NICE GUY FROM A SERIAL KILLER.”
It’s
not like they fucking wear nametags, okay? Moreover, the most awful people with the worst intentions often put on the nicest face or deliberately make themselves seem harmless and likeable, to lull potential victims into a false sense of security. (Read up on Ted Bundy sometime. It’s horrifying shit. Or read any thread on the “Let’s Not Meet” subreddit.)
In order to protect ourselves, we are forced to assume the worst of every man we meet, because statistically speaking, the biggest danger to women…IS MEN. Saying “not all men are out to get you, you’re just being paranoid” is like saying “not every car you ride in is going to crash, so buckling your seatbealt is stupid.”
When dealing with an unknown situation, in the absence of absolute proof of safety, exercising a little extra caution can be the difference between life and death. Shaming women for being what you may view as overly cautious is every bit as horrid as blaming them if something goes wrong later on.
And refusing to go to a
secluded location with a complete stranger without letting someone know
where you’re going, who you’re with, and how to find you is just common street sense, whether you’re on a date or just going out for business or social purposes.
If your life has been so sheltered (or your coping skills so incredible) that you see no need to distrust strangers or worry about the potential for violence, you should thank your lucky stars.
And you should also be aware that just because it hasn’t happened to you or anyone you know does not mean that it doesn’t happen.
Lemme say that louder for the people in the back.
Just because it hasn’t happened to you or anyone you know does not mean that it doesn’t happen.
Re-Reblog for relevant commentary.
And if you won’t take a woman’s word for it because you are some kind of asshat, men who sleep with men also mirror these rituals because even men are afraid of other men based on men’s behavior and inability to understand “no” or take rejection well.
I’ll stop reblogging this when it stops being relevant
Alllll of this. Being paranoid will often save your life. Assholes who say otherwise need to shut their noise holes and stop acting like they know better.
PSA
If I ever get in a new guy’s car I ALWAYS take a pic of him, the vehicle, the plate #, and send it to numerous ppl.
Also, it’s story time! I’m pretty certain I saved my mom’s fucking LIFE by convincing her do this on a date with a fucking COP (which she thought was safer than going out with other men, but let me tell you, cops are the WORST partner abusers around, so pls be safe!!!!).
She had only talked with him online and they were gonna go for a drive somewhere remote for some reason and she wasn’t going to take any precautions at all. I, being a well seasoned internet dater, was terrified by this prospect and warned her about how cops are actually much more dangerous than civilians and that getting in his car and going somewhere remote was even more dangerous. SO, I told her the best thing to do is to take a pic of him, his plates, then send it to me, and make sure you do it all right in front of him SO HE SEES IT. I warned her too that as a cop he should KNOW how dangerous this date would be for her, so if he kicks up a fuss about it AT ALL I told her to run like the fucking wind.
So when she gets there, he is already in his fucking truck, doesn’t get out to greet her, so she takes the pics of his car, plates, and him and sends it to me and I thank her profusely. Then apparently she gets in his car, sees there’s a fucking BAT in the back, and doesn’t this fucker just kick up a damn fuss about her doing this. AND MY MOM DOESN’T GET OUT OF THE CAR!!!!!! OMFGWLJELWNLWEJFANMDS
So he starts the car and they drive away and she can already tell he’s a fucking creeper. At one point, he even tells her a truly sad story of his life and she reacts sadly and doesn’t this dickhead say “why aren’t you smiling?” as if that’s what women are FOR. She responds “You had just told me a very sad, personal story, smiling didn’t seem appropriate”, as if she’s just there for smile back at him and look pretty!!!!
She texts me throughout all of this, telling me she’s increasingly getting uncomfortable and scared. He’s becoming increasingly hostile and unpleasant. She eventually texts me to ask me to call her and pretend to be my younger sister that lives with her saying that I’m sick (my mom’s a nurse). But my younger sis is 26, has a baby, is a personal support worker with some medical knowledge; and that didn’t seem like something strong enough to me that would make this dangerous fucker give up my mom.
So what do I do?
I called her and pretended I was my little sister crying and freaking out because her baby is super sick and she needs her nurse mom at her side bc this is WAY beyond her knowledge or comfort level. Thankfully that worked and he turned around. But he wasn’t happy and that bat was still in the back, staring mom in the goddamn face.
Later she called me and thanked me profusely and she STILL talks about it and how scary it was and how she is CERTAIN the real reason he turned around was bc I had insisted she send me those pictures.
Everyone, please be safe, definitely definitely take precautions! But also know that if something bad ever has or does happen to you, it’s NEVER your fault, even if you “didn’t take the right precautions”. That victim blaming rape culture nonsense is bullshit.
Hey, I don’t usually make PSA posts like this, but if you have a bot by the name of “Notsobot” on any of your discord servers, don’t click the link that it has set as “playing”. It’s a link to a site containing suicide video compilations.
as of July 31st you will no longer be able to receive donations, and you will have no access to information about your donors or fundraiser content. if you have a youcaring go download and save your information asap. in the meantime, any suggestions for similar crowdfunding sites other than gofundme????
Figment, the recently closed writing website, has just launched (after a long delay) their long-awaited successor to figment known as Underlined, where users can post their work and receive feedback, supposedly.
DO NOT USE UNDERLINED. DO NOT POST YOUR WORK ON UNDERLINED.
Underlined’s terms and conditions contains a clause stating that the rights to all your work that you post on their website belongs to them!!!!
Underlined belongs to Penguin Random House. This is an extremely dirty trick for them to play on writers, especially young writers and children, who come to the internet to get feedback and will lose the rights to their work. Please boost!!!
For my writing friends looking for an online writing community, DO NOT USE Underlined.
I went to confirm @greater-than-the-sword‘s post, because seriously publishers are still pulling this garbage? And yes, they are. If you want to check out the full terms and conditions, have at it. They are full of writers’ nightmares, a few of which I’ll highlight under the cut.
So PRH not only owns all rights to your work (for which you are not compensated), they also retain the right to “sub license” – which means they are free to hand it out (for profit) to anyone else.
Wow.
If my reblog keeps just one creator off their site, it’s worth it.
Nyquil fucks me up every time I take it and furthermore, has the audacity to make me forget what fucking happens every single time. Since taking it at about midnight last night, My day:
Woke up at 4-6 AM and apparently did the dishes
Fiance gets up at 8:00AM, allegedly has fully cognizant conversation with me about his plans to stay late and tutor classmates. I don’t remember even being awake.
at 9:32 AM, my Dad called me and i had a 23-minute phone call with him that I have no recollection of, but apparently I spent most of it discussing the merits and drawbacks of the various tablets my mother is interested in. I was mad about how expensive updating storage capacity was for most of them.
Felling way more sober than I actually am, attempt to drive to school at 10:12. and spend enough time confused why my keys aren’t working on my car that my neighbor actually comes out of his apartment to ask what I’m doing to his car. I decide to stay home.
10:40: Send emails to professors to tell them I’m in no shape to be in class. I think I am eloquent. Upon opening my email later I realize I’ve sent them emails with the subject line “fuckt up” and message: “sorry, love you.”
Benefits of going to a small college: they know I’ve got exciting drug reactions already and are sick as well and reply with “I understand and hope you are feeling well soon, here is today’s lecture slides” and “lol” respectively.
~11- 12:30 : Get lost in neighborhood walking dog. In my defense, it’s 99% off-beige generic prefab housing on nonlinear-bordering-on-noneuclidean streets and Charlie had no interest in going home either.
12:30-3:00: Wall
3:00 : phone alarm goes off and I suddenly realize fiance was supposed to be home an hour and a half ago. Fly into immediate panic, try to find phone to call him and/or the sherrif becuase he’s obviously dead in a ditch or something. I am holding my phone the whole time.
3:16 : Fiance gets home, I cry like a bitch, the dog also cries, everyone has a really bad 15 minutes.
3:33 : Realize I haven’t actually ate or drank yet today. Immediately consume a quart of apple cider and plate of taquitos. Make pork chops and potatoes and don’t stop talking about what happens if a werewolf has sex with a dog while shifted the entire time.
4:00: pass out on couch to the soothing sounds of Mario Oddesy
1AM: Why is it thursday?
The moral of the story is that you should always write down any drug reactions and label medication you should take with a large index card that says “DO NOT TAKE THIS IT FUCKS YOU UP THEN YOU FORGET” in large, friendly letters.
Steel Phoenix Studios 
